www.stephaniejwilliams.com
steph.j.williams@gmail.com
steph.j.williams@gmail.com
I started drawing these characters as doodlesin my sketchbook, often appearing as bits and pieces of manufactured andbiological information that formed as my eye wondered and fixated. Too anxious to let my eye stare at mysubject for too long, I only had a limited amount of time to render fragments.Given more time redrawing my doodles these characters formed as something morepermanent.
As formal portraiture they cut up andamalgamate the senses of the human form by taking something mundane andfamiliar and reconfiguring it into alien territory. I’ve found that, out of context these disparate parts becomeobjectified and festishized allowing you want to look at what is uncomfortableto see, to tie a cute bow around the grotesque and to have ownership andaccessibility to anomaly. Over time as I’ve grown to know these characters andthe stories that help form them, the more they require individuality. Idecorate and adorn them as playthings, whose toy like characteristics Ireference as much as the body’s repulsive and often curiously playfultopography.
The senses existseparately and commingle; skin forms a thin barrier just adjacent to interiorand exterior cavities, quivering at varying degrees of stimuli. Moisture isforeign and familiar; temperatures fluctuate as touch introduces new texturesand environments. Eyes dart from contour, to contour exhausting on saturatedcolors, fixating on discovering new worlds miniscule and vast upon deepexploration. Noses intake and categorize tiny bits and pieces as particlesflood their passageways providing opportunity for categorical identification.Tongues consume pungent flavors and textures first alien…then common…then like,as digestion drinks matter down. Ears grasp on ebbs and flows of a stickyatmospheric geography. Theseseparate entities reform to orient its beholder and ultimately know itsexterior environment.
These characters explore the oddities of the human experience, in grownhairs and all. They collect gaps in understanding and reorient in order tocreate myth. They extend a hand that provides context in which our bodiesexperience and understand the world around us.
As formal portraiture they cut up andamalgamate the senses of the human form by taking something mundane andfamiliar and reconfiguring it into alien territory. I’ve found that, out of context these disparate parts becomeobjectified and festishized allowing you want to look at what is uncomfortableto see, to tie a cute bow around the grotesque and to have ownership andaccessibility to anomaly. Over time as I’ve grown to know these characters andthe stories that help form them, the more they require individuality. Idecorate and adorn them as playthings, whose toy like characteristics Ireference as much as the body’s repulsive and often curiously playfultopography.
The senses existseparately and commingle; skin forms a thin barrier just adjacent to interiorand exterior cavities, quivering at varying degrees of stimuli. Moisture isforeign and familiar; temperatures fluctuate as touch introduces new texturesand environments. Eyes dart from contour, to contour exhausting on saturatedcolors, fixating on discovering new worlds miniscule and vast upon deepexploration. Noses intake and categorize tiny bits and pieces as particlesflood their passageways providing opportunity for categorical identification.Tongues consume pungent flavors and textures first alien…then common…then like,as digestion drinks matter down. Ears grasp on ebbs and flows of a stickyatmospheric geography. Theseseparate entities reform to orient its beholder and ultimately know itsexterior environment.
These characters explore the oddities of the human experience, in grownhairs and all. They collect gaps in understanding and reorient in order tocreate myth. They extend a hand that provides context in which our bodiesexperience and understand the world around us.
